Betty left for South Africa on a work trip yesterday afternoon...she was giddy. I know she loves to get a new stamp in her passport and it showed. She is tacking on a 3 day safari on the end of it at Kruger National Park . She was told not to wear red as it excites the animals (most definitely), but I did not know that you shouldn't wear blue as it attracts the titzy (my spelling) flies.
Since Betty was gone and Paul had a late night at school, I took Carolyn out to dinner and she chose our local Thai joint. As we are enjoying our meal, we were checking out this couple (in their 20's) next to us and they were on their cell phones the entire time...even while eating. I think most of us feel that is bad behaviour, and Carolyn volunteered this statement, "Girls make a lot of mistakes when it comes to boys." Could not let that one go so asked for some examples. "Well, after a few dates, girls will start to dress badly once they get comfortable with the guy", she said. I agreed and asked if that was all. She added that "girls shouldn't call the guy every minute of the day and to give their boyfriends some space" and that sometimes "the guys need some time to hang out with their guy friends...have a bromance." Sage advice from a 9 year-old and wonder where she is picking up this stuff. Hope it is iCarly...love that show. On the one hand, am glad she seems to be getting some decent information, but on the other...she is freakin' 9 years old. What to do?
Chinese New Year ended on Sunday...to recap, CNY begins on the second new moon after the Winter Solstice, and ends on the following full moon. Most businesses take the first week off, and the day they go back to work, it is custom to shoot off a huge load of fireworks to ensure a prosperous New Year. That entire day was filled with the sounds of firecrackers being set off in front of every store and business in town. Pretty fun except for the fact that the smell of gunpowder was everywhere...as it was a warm day, had the windows of the apartment open and when I got home that afternoon, it smelled as if a string of them had been set off in our bedroom.
On the last night of Chinese New Year, a tradition is to set off a sky lantern on which you write your hopes for the New Year. The kids school offered up a bus ride to the Pinxi Sky Lantern Festival in Shifen. About an hour and a half ride outside of town, Shifen is nestled in the mountains between Taipei and Keelung. The mountains here are geologically new, and while they aren't very high, they are quite sheer. Shifen itself is in a narrow valley so is rather small. This festival was quite huge. The streets were packed with stalls selling lanterns and a wide variety of treats, such as squid on a stick.
And they had the mobile penis pancake stand. Carolyn had a bunch of questions and I ignored them all. So many gags about this one, but will let you write your own
I mentioned the streets were packed...once we got down to the stage area, it got even more jammed. And I don't know exactly how they did it, and it took a diabolically gifted mind to do so, but no matter where we stood, a blinding spotlight would be shining in our faces. They did turn them off when the lanterns were being released, but still. There were a couple of times where I wanted to pack it in and head back to the bus early. Carolyn felt similarly.
So the deal at the festival is that people are alighting the lanterns around the village constantly, but the show is on a stage where they let off 2000 lanterns, 200 at a time. The cube shaped lantern is made of rice paper and is a little over a yard tall and square, with a metal frame inside that holds a kerosene soaked handkerchief. You light the handkerchief and the hot air fills the lantern causing it to rise like a hot air balloon. Most of them go up and over the mountainside before they burn out and have to travel several miles. A group of 800 people (4 per lantern) gather in the open space in front of the stage to design their lantern while a local politician gave a short speech (we started making up names of the officials that were speaking, like the South Keelung Assistant Director of Drinking Water and Miniature Ceramic Pandas), then a local musical act gets up to sing a song or two (worse than you could possibly imagine). After about 10-15 minutes of this fine entertainment, everyone fires up their lanterns and releases simultaneously. The stage was surrounded by TV cameras and photographers, and the hillsides around it were standing room only. If I had to put a number on it, probably around 50,000 to 75,000 people. We were in the sixth group, and once we started queuing up and got more space, it became far more pleasant. We made it into the stage area and started to work on our lantern. Most people wrote notes asking for health, prosperity, etc. I wrote Yo La Tengo Rules and drew naked stick figure people.
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